Mardi Gras in Rural Acadiana
COLLECTED BY
Organization:
Alexa Crawls
Starting in 1996,
Alexa Internet
has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the
Wayback Machine
after an embargo period.
this data is currently not publicly accessible.
The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20100218064248/http://web.lsue.edu:80/acadgate/mardmain.htm
![](/web/20100218064248im_/http://web.lsue.edu/acadgate/pastel.jpg)
Mardi Gras Archive: Final update of this page
completed in 2009 by
David Simpson
.
Mardi Gras in rural Southwestern Louisiana draws on traditions that
are centuries old. Revelers go from house to house begging to obtain the ingredients for a
communal meal. They wear costumes that conceal their identity and that also parody the
roles of those in authority. They escape from ordinary life partly through the alcohol
many consume in their festive quest, but even more through the roles they portray. As they
act out their parts in a wild, gaudy pageant, they are escaping from routine existence,
freed from the restraints that confine them every other day in the year.
These traditions, folklorists say, go back at least as far as
medieval times. The human impulse that underlies Mardi Gras has not diminished today, even
if some of the traditions lapsed for decades and even if one factor in their revival by
subsequent generations was a desire to enhance tourism. Anyone who has seen the procession
of Mardi Gras riders brightly costumed in myriad colors advancing across the drab
late-winter countryside is also likely to be swept up in the timeless moment: in rural
Acadiana, Mardi Gras lives as much today as it did in centuries past.
|
![](https://web.archive.org/web/20100218064248im_/http://www.lsue.edu/acadgate/colors.jpg) |
According to folklorist Barry Ancelet in his excellent monograph
"Capitaine,
voyage ton flag": The Traditional Cajun Country Mardi Gras
, the Mardi Gras courir
or run was found in most French sections of Louisiana in the nineteenth century. As they
went from one household to the next, the riders engaged in a rowdy celebration that, with
the civilizing influences of the twentieth century, some towns decided to suppress. In the
early 1950s, as part of the effort by Paul Tate, Revon Reed, and others in Mamou to
preserve Cajun culture, the Mardi Gras courir was revived. They also revived "La
Chanson de Mardi Gras," a song echoing medieval melodies still remembered by a few
old-timers: "Capitaine, Capitaine, voyage ton flag. / Allons se mettre dessus le
chemin. / Capitaine, Capitaine, voyage ton flag. / Allons aller chez l'autre voisin."
("Captain, Captain, wave your flag. / Let's take to the road. / Captain, Captain,
wave your flag. / Let's go to the other neighbors.")
The Tee-Mamou courir never lapsed, and the Eunice run was suspended
only during World War II when many of the runners were in the service, but the revival of
the runs in Mamou and Church Point seems to have been a key development in the growing
popularity of the courir. In 1968, Elton Richard of Church Point and State Senator Paul
Tate of Mamou flipped a coin which determined that the Church Point run would be on Sunday
and the Mamou run on Mardi Gras Day. As these runs grew in size and the run in Eunice also
grew, other communities have organized or revived runs.
![](https://web.archive.org/web/20100218064248im_/http://www.lsue.edu/acadgate/euchick.jpg) |
In all of the Mardi Gras runs in rural Acadiana today, the
capitaine maintains control over the Mardi Gras, as the riders are known. He issues
instructions to the riders as they assemble early in the morning and then leads them on
their run. When they arrive at a farm house, he obtains permission to enter private
property, after which the riders may charge toward the house, where the Mardi Gras sing,
dance, and beg until the owner offers them an ingredient for a gumbo. Often, the owner
will throw a live chicken into the air that the Mardi Gras will chase, like football
players trying to recover a fumble. Click here to download MP3 files of Mardi Gras songs
recorded in
Basile
,
Church Point
, and the Mardi Gras
chant in
Soileau
.
|
In addition to the Mardi Gras on horseback, some ride on flatbed
trailers pulled by trucks or tractors. In the Tee-Mamou courir that goes through
countryside where the farm houses are widely separated, the Mardi Gras ride in a converted
cattle trailer. The Basile run also uses trailers.
By mid to late afternoon, the courir returns to town and parades
down the main street on the way to the location where the evening gumbo will be prepared.
Mardi Gras Costumes and Other Traditions
![](/web/20100218064248im_/http://web.lsue.edu/acadgate/mortar.jpg) |
Mardi Gras wear all kinds of masks, including traditional masks
that go back centuries: the high pointed conical hats or capuchons that parody the
headress of noble ladies and that are also associated with dunces; masks with animal
features, often with hair or fur; bishop's mitres parodying the clerical nobility; and
mortarboards,as shown at left (worn by a Mamou Mardi Gras in 1998).
|
![](https://web.archive.org/web/20100218064248im_/http://www.lsue.edu/acadgate/mask2.jpg)
This rider in the Mamou courir has a capuchon and an animal mask.
|
![](https://web.archive.org/web/20100218064248im_/http://www.lsue.edu/acadgate/mammask.jpg)
Notice the hair flowing around a beak in this mask, also in Mamou.
|
![](https://web.archive.org/web/20100218064248im_/http://www.lsue.edu/acadgate/cleric.jpg)
This mask, worn by a rider in the Eunice courir, parodies a bishop's mitre.
|
In earlier, more impoverished times, when the Mardi Gras re-enacted
the medieval tradition of a procession of beggars, they might very well have needed help
from farmers to get the ingredients for their gumbo. Today, the Mardi Gras still carry on
the tradition of begging.
|
This Mardi Gras in the Eunice courir
successfully begged for a quarter in exchange for posing for this picture.
|
![](https://web.archive.org/web/20100218064248im_/http://www.lsue.edu/acadgate/tree.jpg) |
Mardi Gras like to climb trees. Whether they are
symbolically associating themselves with the tree of life, carrying out some ancient
fertility ritual, or just playing around, it's part of the fun of a rural courir.
|
LSUE's Mardi Gras pages do not claim to be comprehensive, not even
for the parishes covered by the Central Acadiana Gateway. Other communities have organized
runs in addition to the runs included here. Other towns have parades, Mardi Gras dances
and balls, and additional activities. Elsewhere in South Louisiana, Mardi Gras in the City
of Lafayette includes New Orleans-style parades.
![](https://web.archive.org/web/20100218064248im_/http://www.lsue.edu/acadgate/dust.gif)
![](/web/20100218064248im_/http://web.lsue.edu/acadgate/ashes.jpg) |
The wild escape from the ordinary cares of life offered by Mardi
Gras can only be understood in juxtaposition with Ash Wednesday and its reminder of
earthly mortality. The LSUE Catholic Student Center is always overflowing with students on
Ash Wednesday. The photograph at left is from 1997, when Father Ken Domingue imposed ashes
and celebrated mass. Each year, Lent is observed by many Catholics in Acadiana with
acts of penance or discipline in preparation for the celebration of Easter and its promise
of spiritual immortality.
|
A Note on Source Material.
In addition to his monograph
"Capitain,
voyage ton flag"
(1989), published by the University of Southwestern Louisiana's
Center for Louisiana Studies, Dr. Barry Ancelet covers the same topics about Mardi Gras in
Cajun Country
(1991), coauthored by Jay Edwards and Glen Pitre and published by the
University Press of Mississippi in its Folklife in the South Series. The same press has
published
Cajun
Mardi Gras Masks
(1997), focusing primarily on Tee-Mamou and Basile. The book,
written by Carl Lindahl and Carolyn Ware, contains many vivid color photographs.
Carolyn Ware went on to write
Cajun Women and Mardi Gras: Reading the Rules Backward
(University of
Illinois Press, 2007), focusing on the Tee-Mamou and Basile women. A scholarly
study that includes an extensive bibliography, the book should also be of
interest to a general audience. Pat
Mire's documentary film
Dance for a Chicken:
The Cajun Mardi Gras
is an excellent account of Mardi Gras in a number of Acadiana
communities.
The Louisiana
State Museum has a web page on Mardi Gras courirs.
LSUE's Folklore Series
from the 1990s also
contains information on Mardi Gras traditions (including interviews on costumes and the
Eunice courir in the third volume published in 1997).
Prepared by David Simpson.
Return to Central Acadiana
Gateway
Updated April 2009.